Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Web Publications review (#344)

#### WebIDL
> To step back a bit: the reason of using WebIDL (or, shall we say, something like WebIDL) is actually related to another question of yours:

Perhaps my concern was the description *generally* of WebIDL in that way, rather than that being a description of *how WebIDL is being used in this specification*.

#### `partial`
> Can you elaborate why you think that is a bad practice?

I think `partial` is a bad practice because it breaks the ability of a reader of the specification to look at the definition of the interface and understand what methods it has on it -- whether than reader is a user or an implementor of the specification.  It's essentially a syntax for monkeypatching another specification (or another section of a specification) with no indication in that other section that it is incomplete and patched elsewhere.

`partial` is a useful mechanism in early stage proposals that aren't yet agreed on:  it says "when this proposal is ready, this should be merged in to this other interface".  In other words, I think `partial` is reasonable to use when the specification that's using it is substantially less stable than the interface it's patching.  But I think use in other contexts is a bad practice; it indicates that this spec is patching another spec rather than actually getting that spec revised appropriately so that readers of the patched spec know that the patch exists.



-- 
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/344#issuecomment-491031904